The former president of Gorj county council Nicolae Mischie was recently convicted to four years in jail for trading influence and bribery, and the decision is final. Mischie, a former leader of the Social Democratic Party, was already taken to jail. His sentence comes almost at the same time as another PSD leader, the former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase was freed from jail on parole, after serving almost nine months off his two-year sentence.

Mischie said he is innocent and that his lawyers will take the case further to the European Court of Human Rights, as he thinks he is a victim of judiciary abuse.

The first guilty verdict in this case came in June 2012, but at the appeal, the court decided the sentence should be dropped.

Mischie was sent to court by the Anti-corruption Directorate DNA in 2004, after he had asked businessman Clement Mocanu to renovate his villa in Targu Jiu, in exchange for facilitating access to a series of contracts for mining and energy utilities. The businessman chose to turn informant and the court decided he should receive some RON 325,000 – or some EUR 70,000 at today's exchange rate – for the construction work at Mischie's villa.

Mischie was president of Gorj county council between 1996 and 2004, when he also headed the local subsidiary of PSD. In 2008, he tried to win an MP mandate, as he had been an MP before, but the constituency was won by the current Prime Minister and PSD leader Victor Ponta. The former Gorj county council president was excluded from the PSD soon after being sent to court in this case.

editor@romania-insider.com